1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a method for monitoring therapy rendered to treat growth disorders, such as hormone therapy.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In children and young persons, growth disorders can occur due to various defects, for example, due to a pituitary tumor. Such disorders can result in disproportionately short or tall physical height, typically less than 150 cm or greater than 200 cm. Due to the lasting consequences of such anomalous height in adulthood, hormone therapies with which growth can be influenced in juveniles or teens have been employed for some time. Such therapy is complicated and expensive (at least $50,000 to $60,000 per patient). In the context of such therapy, for diagnosis and/or quantitative determination of the growth that still presumably remains, the osteo age of the patients is conventionally determined by frequently repeated x-raying of the wrist bones over the course of years, and analysis of the wrist bones, as seen in the x-ray images, on the basis of an atlas. X-ray examinations of children, however, are generally problematical because the cells have four times the radiation sensitivity of adults (in view of the potential for cancer) and there is no lower threshold for the danger of x-rays.
Heretofore, there had been no methods for avoiding the stress produced by ionizing radiation in the context of monitoring hormone therapy for treating growth disorders.